Just finished watching Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Great action, but I was also ROFL at some of the stuff in the fight scenes between Arnold and the Terminator Chick. :rofl2: I don't know if they were meant to be funny, but they had me literally laughing out loud.
I don't know how they filmed those scenes, I just remember the outtakes on the 2 disc DVD edition, some laughs here and there. I agree it's a great movie, but borrows too much from T2. The ending really made it a must watch, it corrects the whole bullshit about "Judgment day is inevitable," by making it actually happen right on the movie's timeline. Either it had to happen or there was no need whatsoever for T3. I read a bit that James Cameron considers Genisys as the true sequel to T2. I still haven't seen the film, no spoilers please.
Gloria. Halfway through the movie, I said to myself that I may cry in the movie. By the end of it, I was really close to crying. It's amazing. I discovered it through a [NOBABE]Sybil Danning[/NOBABE] interview, she said Gloria was the last pure and strong female of the 80s, which is poignant because the film came out in 1980, right at the beginning of the decade.
I understand that, the two closest would be Ellen Ripley and [NOBABE]Sarah Connor[/NOBABE], but both had male help, and really only got to be ass kickers towards the end. Connor was all badass in T2, but that's the 90s. So for the 80s, from start to finish, the Gloria character, played by [NOBABE]Gena Rowlands[/NOBABE], was a strong character.
She was alone with this kid, now orphaned after the mob gunned down his family. She took care of [NOBABE]the kid[/NOBABE] because his mother and her are friends, and they didn't get along at first. So the movie's all about their relationship growing, and the action parts saw Gloria killing some mobsters and defending herself. It was incredible how real it looked, because when she uses the gun, she's not an assassin or professional. She's an ex-gun moll, but no master. She shoots out of impulse and instinct, and of course to protect the boy. Motherly instincts basically.
I was gutted to find out after watching this that a freaking remake was made, with [NOBABE]Sharon Stone[/NOBABE]. She's not bad at all, but come on. I remember The Quick and The Dead, and that showed as some strong action female character, she's quite silly. Can't take her seriously, there's no way I'd be engaged in the remake. That speaks of how awesome Gena Rowlands was. For some reason, the boy that played Phillip, John Adames, got a razzie win (tie) for supporting actor. Really?! Considering it was his first and only film role, I thought [NOBABE]the kid[/NOBABE] did perfectly fine.
When it's not a great character development with the two main characters, it's a thrilling movie with the escapes and gun scenes, even a car crash that looked really convincing since the camera focused on the front windshield, looking like the actors didn't switch places with stuntmen.
I could nitpick about [NOBABE]the kid[/NOBABE] being a snot nosed punk sometimes, but it's part of the character, and he did mature by the end of the movie. The ending, ah, so awesome, I was thinking one thing happened based on what [NOBABE]the kid[/NOBABE] said, but the opposite happened and I felt much happier for it.
Since I've been watching trash and skin (often at the same time) lately, this proper drama really won me over. The music was pretty subtle, and that gets a mention because the guy who did Rocky and the theme song to that, Bill Conti, did the music for this film. Unless going by pure action characters, I can't think of such a strong female character at Gloria's level. She wasn't a victim at all, but not fearless, she absolutely knew how to take care of herself, all the way down to her walk. She embodies the NYC toughness without being animated, annoying, or even stereotypical. Sucks that Gena Rowlands didn't get a Best Actress win at the Oscars, I can't comment on Sissy Spacek's winning performance.
On the imdb trivia, sourced from a book, that the writer-director John Cassavetes thought the least of this piece out of his other work, since A Child Is Waiting, but this is the most favorably reviewed film. 95% on rottentomatoes. Whatever the case, the movie's brilliant, one of the best I've seen this year. Might not be saying much given most of what I watch is skin and trash.
